A year before, in 2013, Cognizant India instructed L&T to pay $770,000 in bribes to a Maharashtra government official for seeking environmental clearance for a campus in Pune. Finally, L&T again paid $870,000 in bribes to government officials for construction-related permits in Siruseri, Chennai in 2015, again on behalf of Cognizant. Embarrassingly for Cognizant, SEC found that Coburn asked company executives to “withhold future payments to Contracting Firm-1 if it resisted paying the bribe on Cognizant’s behalf". Subrahmanyan headed the infrastructure business during the years when the company is alleged to have made these bribes to government officials. Coburn resigned from Cognizant in October 2016 when the company told US authorities that some payments made in India could have breached the law.

Source: Mint February 17, 2019 18:11 UTC